RELATED ARTICLES

Share this article

Share

Police said two soldiers were killed and four wounded.

The al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab militants killed a lawmaker and his bodyguard in an attack on Thursday, accusing them of collaborating with Christians - a reference to the backing Mogadishu gets from Western powers and the African Union.

A Reuters reporter saw bloodied, broken chairs that were used by the troops guarding parliament before the attack.

A wounded man is carried to a bed at Daru-Alshifa Hospital after he was injured in the car bombing

The series of vicious attacks in the Somali capital claimed the lives of five people and injured twelve more

A senior Somali police officer said the car bomb was stopped at a checkpoint before reaching parliament

'A car bomb occurred near the parliament house but we are all safe,' Dahir Amin Jesow, a legislator, said, referring to lawmakers inside the building.

The militants struck again a few hours later, shooting dead three traffic officers in the Waberi district of Mogadishu, abu Musab said.

The third attack of the day, which al Shabaab did not take responsibility for immediately, was a mortar launched into the Shibis district.

'We heard an explosion but we found it was a mortar shell that landed. We have counted seven injured people,' local shopkeeper Abdullahi Ahmed said.

The injured included children, pictured here getting treatment after the three separate attacks across the city

The car bombing was only the first attack of the day - it was followed by separate gun and mortar attacks

Soldiers were called in the guard the area immediately following the car bomb attack which killed two people